Crusader of the Realms
by The Jester of Fools
Summary: What happens when an author is thrown unprepared into a melting pot of worlds and given no other choice than to survive? Contains traces many series and will only continue to grow as it continues.
1. Chapter 1

The young man slowly cracked his eyes open, eyes unfocused as he looked over the room. Blurs of color swirled and combined in his mottled vision. Vaguely he was aware of a high voice speaking, but it was as muted and indistinct as his vision. His head lolled from side to side, trying to shake the haze from his mind. His body was as slow and unresponsive as his mind; limbs like dead-weights and his chest heavy and tight.

His senses came to him slowly, as if pulling a thick wet cloth from his face or exiting from shell-shock. The colors gained definition and shape, transforming the blurs of color to an ornate wooden room dressed up in long tapestries and golden candelabras. Before him was a long red carpet and a set of stairs leading to two thrones as regal as the man and woman who sat in them. The two were dressed in what looked to be silk and fur, jewelry shining in the firelight and casting shadows upon their frighteningly beautiful faces. It was the woman who's voice was slowly gaining coherency to his recovering ears. He watched her lips move and form sentences, though his mind was still too muddled to figure out what she was mouthing.

"...The choice is yours, Child of Man."

That, the first sentence to pierce the thick haze clouding his mind, sent ice-cold shivers down his spine and started to clear away the fog. The boy tried to move his arms only to find them unresponsive. Looking to his sides it became immediately apparent why; his arms were being held by two armor-clad guards while his legs dragged on the carpet behind him.

Information slowly trickled into his head like a mountain stream gradually defrosting during the spring. He had been sitting at his desk working on nothing when there was a screeching ripping sound and he knew no more. He felt the comforting weight of his switchblade and hair pick in his pockets, but not that of his phone or wallet. He was wearing his normal business clothes and his worn-through rockpor- A jarring blow to his head stopped his mental catalog. After his teeth stopped rattling, he glared up at the guard before turning his gaze to the two in front of him. "Where... am I?" His throat was sore and dry, causing his question to come out as more of a growl.

The man sneered at him but said nothing. The woman stared down her nose at him before speaking in a high, almost musical, tone. "You were found in the Grove of Lilliandriel; a sacred place where no filthy mongrel is to set foot, yet there we found you Child of Man. The punishment for trespassing in our home is death, Child of Man, but you did more than trespass; you defiled our sacred grove and we find ourselves in a quandary as to what to do with you. Death seems too lenient a punishment."

Something blinked at him from the corner of his eye, but he had more important things to deal with. Taking a second look around the room he noticed that the guards, of which there were many in his field of view, all wore armor that seemed more ornamental than functional and all had a sword, bow and quiver of arrows within easy reach. What really gave it away was the ears; he had been captured by elves.

The thought was so absurd it actually made him laugh aloud. With his throat in such bad condition, however, it came out more as a hacking wheeze. "So I've finally lost my mind; god, that's a comfort. For a while I was sure I was completely sane." King and Queen elf bristled at the blatant dismissal and he felt another harsh slap connect with the back of his head. "Ugh, could do without the pain though."

The Elf King's face took on a dark hue as it twisted into a snarl. "If it's pain you want, human, it's pain you'll get!" With a wave of his hand, he signaled for one of the guards by the walls to move forward and kick him in the ribs. After two such kicks, biting his cheek to keep from crying out, the human decided to take a shot in the psychological dark. "He'd still be *urk* alive if it wasn't for *oof* you!"

The guard froze mid-kick as the King's face drained of color. His hands started to shake with how tightly he was gripping the arms of his throne. The Queen looked as if she had seen a ghost, staring off into the distance. The human spat a mouthful of blood onto the carpet and tried to stabilize his breathing.

The King licked his lips absently, "Take him... take him to the holding cells. We will offer him to the Great Guardian tomorrow. Take him away."

The human spat another glob of blood onto the floor and glared at the King as the two guards dragged him away from the monarchs. As the two warriors dragged him, the human studied the path they were taking and how the walls looked. He made several attempts to stand, only to be smacked down by the guards. Resigning himself to the painful transportation, he noticed that the walls were made of natural wood as if the halls had been carved out of the insides of a massive tree. The deeper they went, however, he started to see solid blocks of stone, very unlike the normal thought of elves. The structures reminded him of something... but it was just out of his grasp. It wasn't until they passed a set of glowing crystals that the answer hit him like a slap to the face. '_Ayleids... what the_ fuck _is going on here?_'

He was roughly tossed into a cell and the guards left, locking another door farther up. Looking around he noticed several other prisoners of various... species. Humans, a couple elves and what looked like an gnome. On a whim he called out, "Erky Timbers?"

The gnome looked up sharply and stared at him. "How did you know my name?"

The human couldn't respond, he was too busy laughing. "Oh, oh god, we might have a chance at surviving!" He ignored the rest of the prisoners as he retreated into his mind, blocking out the sheer impossibility of this reality; denying it's existence. He realized something was still blinking out of the corner of his eye, but no matter where he looked, it stayed just on the corner of his vision. He unfocused his eyes and tried to focus on the spot which led to the most startling thing he'd seen yet in this world; a small rectangle that said 'Level Up!' He was struck stupid for a moment, all he could say was, "Damn, Chaos actually did it."


	2. Chapter 2

This... was just too damn much. It had started off as a normal day; got up around 10, showered, dressed and carpooled to the office. From there he switched between debt reconciliation and surfing the internet. He had been dozing in his chair when he heard an awful screech, like the dying screams of a vulture, and blacked out. The next thing he knew he had been drug before Ayleid royalty. How could this have happened? It went _way_ outside of all causality and probability and went straight into the territory of the inconceivable. But there had to be a connector, a cause to this madness, something to validate this sheer impossibility; it was all that was tethering his mind to reality at the moment.

He took several deep breaths and tried to calm himself. _Think back, think back, what were you doing when it happened? Anything unusual happen, anything out of the ordinary? He had been thinking something right as about he was about to drift off... what was it?_ Recollection comes with it's own horrors, it seems. _I wish I could live in one of my RP sessions; it'd be a hell of a lot more interesting than all this damn paperwork... "_Out of all the wishes to ever be made, this is the one that gets granted?" He snarled.

The other prisoners gave him strange looks, but he didn't even notice them at the moment. A swelling anger filled his being that seemed to grow regardless of his attempts to suppress it. Trying to distract himself, he noticed that there was another flashing symbol in his peripheral vision; a question mark within a white circle. A help menu; about damned time. He focused on the icon and a black screen filled his vision. He waited a moment for something to pop up, something to happen, anything at all... Nothing. Going on a gut instinct, he spoke aloud. "Chaos?"

The screen changed to that of an opulent sitting room; bookshelves crammed with leather-bound tomes and knickknacks, a roaring fireplace and an overstuffed chair. In the chair sat what looked to be a cross of a jester and one of the heartless from Kingdom Hearts. The being was reading a book and absently scratching a cat, who was purring happily on his lap, behind the ear. His eyes flickered up curiously and gave a grin that almost seemed to bisect his head with how large it was. "Death, my friend, so good to see you. I see you've stumbled your way into another mess. Hehehe, but this time it seems it's worse than you're usual screw-ups."

The self-styled Death scowled at his long-time friend heatedly. "I'm stuck in one of your damned games; literally this time. Get me out of here, kiddo, this isn't funny."

The jester gave a shrug and set his book down. "No can do, pops; I didn't have a hand in creating this little excursion."

Death paled at the remark. "What do you mean you hand nothing to do with this? This reeks of your meddling!"

Chaos merely shrugged and petted the cat on his lap languidly. "I may have helped, but it wasn't me who concocted this mess; I was merely left in charge of the 'help desk'."

The human prisoner growled throatily and glared at the calm jester. Then who did this."

"Why, you did of course."

"What do you mean I did this? If that was true I would have been out of here already!"

Chaos smirked and raised an eyebrow. "Tell me something, who created you?"

Death blinked at the non-sequitur. "Wha-"

"Is it possible that, like me, you are just the facet of an otherwise incomprehensible complex being who has created you in order to channel a fraction of his personality upon a world he has seen fit on creating?" Chaos's voice was light and airy; as if he weren't talking about things possibly reality-breaking.

Death blanched. "I'm in a fanfiction, aren't I?"

Chaos merely smiled.

Death sighed. "Well hell, might as well have some fun with it." He shifted against the stone wall towards a more comfortable position. "So, tell me the basics."

"You're in a, quite literal, melting pot of worlds. Here you'll find everything from mainstream games such as Oblivion and Neverwinter Nights to the worlds we've created for our gaming sessions. As such, you'll never know what to expect." Chaos grew his manic face-splitting grin again.

"Sounds fun. So what do I have to do?"

"Well first off I'd suggest character creation." He pointed off-screen towards the level up signal that was still flashing in the corner of his vision.

Seeing as he really had no other choice, Death focused on the bar and it brought up a virtual character sheet. A few areas had already been filled in such as his race, gender, height and weight, but what surprised him were his stats. "Strength and Constitution 12, Dexterity 13, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma all 15?"

Chaos shrugged from his window. "Apparently those were the stats that most represented you."

Death snorted. "Constitution's too high and Dexterity's too low, then."

"Regardless, what will you do?"

Death thought for a moment. His stats were too low for a melee class and his strengths were all in 'skill and abilities' areas... "I don't know. Definitely going to go magic at some point but that would destroy my skill base to go straight off... What books do I have access to?"

Chaos inspected his nails. "Just the core book for now, you can find the rest if you know where to look."

"Fun." Death groused. "And since I apparently can't switch my stats I'm effectively cut off from most minmaxing." He rubbed his temples and considered his options for several long minutes. "Rogue is a definite for first level, being in jail and all. Gives me... forty four points to play with." He glanced over at his skills and noticed that they were all blank. "What gives? I know I have at least a few ranks in swim."

Chaos had gone back to reading his book at this point; he didn't even look up to reply. "Those have been redacted. Consider this a fresh start."

"What're the rules for gaining skill points before level-up?"

"You train, you gain."

Death looked back to his sheet and started muttering under his breath. "Looks like I'll be going diplomancer on this one. 11 skills at max... Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Info, Intimidate and Sense Motive are must-haves... Decipher Script, Disguise, Forgery, Move Silently and Open Locks will be useful for a spy... Damn, that only leads me with one more skill and there are so many useful ones..."

After nearly a half hour of deliberation he settled on a skill set. Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Intimidate, Sense Motive, Move Silently and Open Locks would all be fully maxed out as they were very useful at the moment. Decipher Script, Disguise, Forgery and Listen all settled at three ranks. Search and Escape Artist each had two ranks, finishing up the process.

He looked over the list of feats available to him and the pickings were slim for the type of character he was creating. Eventually he decided on Negotiator and Persuasive, both of which would highlight his talents and (hopefully) give him an edge.

Everything else seemed to auto-configure to his choices and all that was left was the 'fluff'. Languages were easy; Common, Elven_ (might help him wiggle out of this situation)_, and Draconic _(he was going to become a Wizard at some point, might as well get started now)_. Alignment, Deity and Character Name... "Hey Chaos?"

"Yes."

"If I pick an alignment, will it force my morals and ethics to conform to that standard?"

He snorted. "You still have those things? I thought they went out a long time ago." The Jester rolled his eyes at Death's cold glare. "Fine, fine; no it won't change you permanently. It'll make the ideas of the chosen seem more appealing, but it won't force you to act along those guidelines."

"True Neutral, then. Better to be in the middle than at one extreme or another. Deity is obvious," Death grinned widely. "I choose to pray to the DM." The deity section remained blank for a few seconds before filling in with 'DM (Brown-nose)'. The second part disappeared quickly enough.

"A name, god that's tough. I suppose that I can't use any of my previous ones?" Death mumbled to himself. "Well then, let's go with Cairan Malus Vale; kinda rolls of the tongue, yeah?"

Chaos stands and walks over to one of the bookcases, leaning against it. "If that's the name that you want to be known as for the rest of this life." The jester giggles while spinning a crystal ball on his hands and arms, "After all, you're not going to be able to change it until you die in this world."

The newly dubbed Cairan smirked. "Pseudonyms, my friends, pseudonyms are our friends. Besides, my standbys have all been taken... literally." His new name appeared in a twisting, elegant scrawl at the top of the sheet and the paper began to shine.

Vaguely he was aware of Chaos's voice in the back of his mind, as the paper had his full attention. "Oh, by the way, this might hurt a bit." The paper seemed to glow brighter before a pulse swept over him, causing mind-rending pain as he felt his body and mind adapt to the new changes. Thankfully, he passed out after a few seconds, falling happily into the dark depths of oblivion.


End file.
